ANONYMOUS
NOVELS FOR CHRISTMAS, 1837
[From Fraser's Magazine, January, 1838]
If[1] against the inroads of the evangelical party the orthodox church has need of a defender, it hardly would wish, we should think, to be assisted tali auxilio. Mrs. Trollope has not exactly the genius which is best calculated to support the Church of England, or to argue upon so grave a subject as that on which she has thought proper to write.
[1] The Vicar of Wrexhill. By Mrs. Trollope. London, 1837.
With a keen eye, a very sharp tongue, a firm belief, doubtless, in the high church doctrines, and a decent reputation from the authorship of half-a-dozen novels, or other light works, Mrs. Trollope determined on no less an undertaking than to be the champion of oppressed Orthodoxy. These are feeble arms for one who would engage in such a contest, but our fair Mrs. Trollope trusted entirely in her own skill, and the weapon with which she proposed to combat a strong party is no more nor less than this novel of The Vicar of Wrexhill. It is a great pity that the heroine ever set forth on such a foolish errand; she has only harmed herself and her cause (as a bad advocate always will), and had much better have remained home, pudding-making or stocking-mending, than have meddled with matters which she understands so ill.
In the first place (we speak it with due respect for the sex), she is guilty of a fault which is somewhat too common among them; and having very little, except prejudice, on which to found an opinion, she makes up for want of argument by a wonderful fluency of abuse. A woman's religion is chiefly that of the heart, and not of the head. She goes through, for the most part, no tedious process of reasoning, no dreadful stages of doubt, no changes of faith: she loves God as she loves her husband—by a kind of instinctive devotion. Faith is a passion with her, not a calculation; so that, in the faculty of believing, though they far exceed the other sex, in the power of convincing they fall far short of them.
Oh! we repeat once more, that ladies would make puddings and mend stockings! that they would not meddle with religion (what is styled religion, we mean), except to pray to God, to live quietly among their families, and move lovingly among their neighbours! Mrs. Trollope, for instance, who sees so keenly the follies of the other party—how much vanity there is in Bible Meetings—how much sin even at Missionary Societies—how much cant and hypocrisy there is among those who desecrate the awful name of God, by mixing it with their mean interests and petty projects—Mrs. Trollope cannot see that there is any hypocrisy or bigotry on her part. She, who designates the rival party as false, and wicked, and vain—tracing all their actions to the basest motives, declaring their worship of God to be only one general hypocrisy, their conduct at home one fearful scene of crime, is blind to the faults on her own side. Always bitter against the Pharisees, she does as the Pharisees do. It is vanity, very likely, which leads these people to use God's name so often, and to devote all to perdition who do not coincide in their peculiar notions. Is Mrs. Trollope less vain than they when she declares, and merely declares, her own to be the real creed, and stigmatises its rival so fiercely? Is Mrs. Trollope serving God, in making abusive licencious pictures of those who serve Him in a different way? Once, as Mrs. Trollope has read—it was a long time ago!—there was a woman taken in sin; the people brought her before a great Teacher of Truth, who lived in those days. Shall we not kill her? said they; the laws command that all adulteresses be killed. We can fancy a Mrs. Trollope in the crowd, shouting, "oh, the wretch! oh, the abominable harlot! kill her, by all means—stoning is really too good for her!" But what did the Divine Teacher say? He was quite as anxious to prevent the crime as any Mrs. Trollope of them all; but he did not even make an allusion to it—he did not describe the manner in which the poor creature was caught—He made no speech to detail the indecencies which she committed, or to raise the fury of the mob against her—He said "let the man who is without sin himself throw the first stone!" Whereupon the Pharisees and Mrs. Trollope slunk away, for they knew they were no better than she. There was as great a sin in His eyes as that of the poor erring woman—it was the sin of pride.
Mrs. Trollope may make a licentious book, of which the heroes and heroines are all of the evangelical party; and it may be true, that there are scoundrels belonging to that party as to every other; but her shameful error has been in fixing upon the evangelical class as an object of satire, making them necessarily licentious and hypocritical, and charging everyone of them with the vices which belong to only a very few of all sects….
There are some books, we are told, in the libraries of Roman Catholic theologians, which, though written for the most devout purposes, are so ingeniously obscene as to render them quite dangerous for common eyes. The groom, in the old story, had never learned the art of greasing horses' teeth, to prevent their eating oats, until the confessor, in interrogating him as to his sins, asked him the question. The next time the groom came to confess, he had greased the horses' teeth. It was the holy father who taught him, by the very fact of warning him against it. By which we mean, that there are some scenes of which it is better not to speak at all.
Our fair moralist, however, has no such squeamishness. She will show up these odious evangelicals; she will expose them and chastise them, wherever they be. So have we seen, in that beautiful market in Thames Street, whither the mariners of England bring the glittering produce of their nets—so have we seen, we say, in Billingsgate, a nymph attacking another of her sisterhood. How keenly she detects and proclaims the number and enormity of her rival's faults! How eloquently she enlarges upon the gin she has drunk, the children she has confided to the parish, the watchmen whose noses she has broken, and the bridewells which she has visited in succession! No one can but admire the lady's eloquence and talent in conducting the case for the prosecution; no one will, perhaps, doubt the guilt of the hapless object on whom her wrath is vented. But, with all her rage for morality, had not that fair accused have better left the matter alone? That torrent of slang and oath, O nymph! falls ill from thy lips, which should never open but for a soft word or a smile; that accurate description of vice, sweet orator [-tress or-trix]! only shows that thou thyself art but too well acquainted with scenes which thy pure eyes should never have beheld. And when we come to the matter in dispute—a simple question of mackerel—O, Mrs. Trollope! Why, why should you abuse other people's fish, and not content yourself with selling your own….
There can be little doubt as to the cleverness of this novel, but, coming from a women's pen, it is most odiously and disgustingly indecent. As a party attack, it is an entire failure; and as a representation of a very large portion of English Christians, a shameful and wicked slander.